I read this piece recently by Teresa Preston called ‘100 Must-Read Plays Not by Shakespeare’. It made me think about the plays I have read, seen performed and watched adaptations of. I love plays but I haven’t read a lot of them. I thought that I could list them down in a page. And then I could look at the list and feel bad about it. As Woody Allen’s character says in ‘Annie Hall‘ – “I feel that life is divided up into the horrible and the miserable. These are the two categories. The horrible would be like terminal cases. And blind people. And cripples. I don’t know how they get through life. And the miserable is everyone else. So, you should be thankful that you’re miserable. You’re very lucky to be miserable.” I knew that my list of plays was going to be short and it was going to make me feel miserable. Well, I am happy to be miserable. Here is my list of plays – plays I have read, seen performed and watched film / TV adaptations of.

Plays read

(1) The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
(2) Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov
(3) A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
(4) Oedipus by Sophocles
(5) The Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan
(6) A Streetcar named Desire by Tennessee Williams
(7) And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
(8) The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie
(9) Witness for the Prosecution by Agatha Christie
(10) The Robbers by Friedrich Schiller
(11) Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller
(12) Hayavadhana by Girish Karnad
(13) Nagamandala by Girish Karnad
(14) Tughlaq by Girish Karnad
(15) Muhammad bin Tughlaq by Cho Ramaswamy
(16) La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler
(17) Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
(18) The Homecoming by Harold Pinter
(19) She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith

Play performance watched

(1) A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Narrated / performed by my mom

(1) Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Film / TV Adaptations watched

(1) Gods of Carnage by Yasmina Reza
(2) Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire
(3) My Zinc Bed by David Hare
(4) Platonov by Anton Chekhov
(5) The Odd Couple by Neil Simon
(6) The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman
(7) The Petrified Forest by Robert E. Sherwood
(8) Proof by David Auburn
(9) Alfie by Bill Naughton
(10) Hamlet by William Shakespeare
(11) The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
(12) The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
(13) The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams
(14) Closer by Patrick Marber

I think in terms of quality the list is good, actually excellent. Not very diverse, but excellent still. In terms of quantity, bad, very bad. I am not much of a theatre goer and have never been. That is not going to change much. But I hope to read more plays and watch more film / TV adaptations and improve that number above, which stands at 35 right now.

Which are my favourite plays from the above? I loved all the film / TV adaptations except for Patrick Marber’s ‘Closer‘. That one, I didn’t like much, eventhough it had Julia Roberts in it. I loved the performance of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. It was, interestingly, performed by an Italian theatre company. ‘Twelfth Night’ was one of our family favourites – my mom used to narrate us the story / perform some of the scenes during dinner time or during weekends when I was a kid. She was a great storyteller. Those were magical times. My mom inspired me to read. She passed on her infectious love for literature to me. I miss her so much. Out of the plays I read, I liked all of them except for the last three. Harold Pinter’s ‘The Homecoming’ was powerful, but I didn’t like it much. Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘She Stoops to Conquer‘ was disappointing.

So, do you like reading plays? Do you like watching performances in the theatre? Which are your favourite plays?

16 Responses

Great list! I don’t think I’ve read too many plays since college. And from back then, the ones that really stand out in my memory are Silence! The Court is in Session, a translation of Vijay Tendulkar’s play in Marathi and All My Sons by Arthur Miller.

Thanks 🙂 I think I have that Vijay Tendulkar play in my collection. Hoping to read it sometime. I haven’t read that Arthur Miller Play. I might have read his Death of a Salesman, but I am not sure. Thanks for stopping by, Vijayalakshmi 🙂

I haven’t read many plays recently but I do keep picking up a small book of three Strindberg plays—I haven’t read anything by him. I would like to re-read some of Chekhov’s plays….but in the end I prefer novels and films to plays.

I thought that your “Plays Read” list was quite respectable. Many people don’t really enjoy reading plays, although I loved reading them. My favorite time to read them was late on a summer night when I could finish the play before bed. I haven’t heard of Karnad so there is something new there for me to explore.

Starting when I was about 15 my mother, aunt and cousin would go to Ashland, Oregon each summer to watch the Shakespearean plays in the outdoor theater. If you Google the theater you can see how lovely it is. Since those days I have gone back several times with my kids to enjoy the beautiful plays, costumes and pageantry. You would love it, Vishy. Dances from that period were performed outdoors with appropriate music for people to watch before the play would begin. One could rent seat cushions and also blankets if it was a cool night. The souvenirs were charming, and the edibles were typical sweetmeats of the time. Now there are a number of theaters there and so one can go throughout the year as the other theaters are indoors. It also offers an enormous selection of plays to choose from.

I used to go to plays more often when I lived in Portland, but especially enjoyed going to plays at the high school where I worked since some of my students performed. It was such a pleasure to see my students in a different light.

Over the years I saw a few lemons, but mostly really enjoyed live performances. I hope that you can do that more often as it always feels like such a special event.

As for plays made into movies I enjoy those too. I think we have come to expect so much more in a performance now since TV gives us so many production options. TV doesn’t limit us to only a couple of stage sets. There is something so deliciously sparse in a play that is lost when it is turned into a film. Still, both are good…simply different art forms.

I was especially touched by the story you shared of your mother acting out “Twelfth Night”. It must have been enchanting to spend time that way. Did you realize at the time that most kids’ parents don’t do that sort of thing? You were fortunate to have that unique and very special experience. What a lovely memory.

Thank you for your beautiful comment, Heidi. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences on plays and theatre. Glad to know that you love reading plays too. Karnad is a famous playwright here. His most famous play is Hayavadhana. Ashland looks like such a beautiful place. I remember you telling me about it before. It sounds so beautiful listening to Elizabethan era music and then sitting outdoors eating sweetmeats and watching Twelfth Night or A Midsummer Night’s Dream – sounds so perfect! I hope I can watch a play like that sometime. So wonderful that you had plays at school and they were wonderful. Nice to know that you like film adaptations of plays too. I loved what you said – that a live performance of a play has a sparse beauty which is not there in a film adaptation. When I was a kid, I thought that all parents told their children stories 🙂 Now I know that, that is unusual and my mom was different. I once tried telling classic stories to a couple of kids and I wasn’t half as good as my mom. She was really wonderful. Miss her very much. Hope that I will be able to watch more live plays in the future. Thanks Heidi!

The quality of your list is great!
I’m sure mine would be much longer as a I studied plays and read tons of them at some point. I alos used to go to the theater very often. Not so much anymore.
How lovely what your mother did. i think Twefth Night is one of the plays I’ve never read/saw performed or any adaptations. I’m in the mood now.

Thanks Caroline 🙂 I hope to atleast read more plays in the future. We have a theatre festival here and this year they were performing Yasmina Reza’s Gods of Carnage. But I couldn’t make it. Hopefully I will do better next year. Hope you get to watch / read Twelfth Night. It is a beautiful story of mistaken identities which leads to a lot of hilarious scenes.